Brother
by Farla
Summary: The story of an eevee family. No, it's not a happy story. I don't write a lot of happy stories.


Brother, my brother

Alright everyone, rather then use [] or ** or any other symbols for pokemon speech, I am just using the normal "". Why? Because humans aren't the main focus, and naturally when pokemon hear each other it must sound like normal sounds to them. I don't think it's that confusing, so it doesn't matter much. But no, none of the eevees are speaking human.

No, I don't think I should stop writing depressing, nasty pokemon POVs like my parents keep telling me. My pokemon world is not a happy place, so if you want happiness, go somewhere else.

A group of young eevees race through a meadow. 

"I'm gonna be a flareon when I evolve!" yells one proudly.

"Yeah, well I'm evolving into a vaporeon, and I'll beat you!" says his sister, with no less pride.

"Ha! I know what I want to be! I wanna be a spiky jolteon! I'll shock anyone who gets in my way!"

"No way, I'll beat you with my super-hot fire blast!"

The argument, thus prompted, then begins on who will be the strongest when they evolve. It is playful. They would never truly attack each other, for this is their family.

Two of them, closer then usual, stand together on the side. Neither has proclaimed what they will evolve into one day.

"What do you want to be?" asks one.

The other jerks slightly, not expecting the question, not really knowing how to answer. "I don't know. I guess I'll chose when I'm older. You?"

"I think I'd like to be that special one Mother told us about. Espeon, didn't it sound like the best ever?"

"A hard one. You can't just get a stone for that. Remember, Mother also said that eevees could wait their whole lives to evolve and never become espeon."

"Children!" called their mother, a sleek vaporeon. "It's getting dark. Come on in."

The three arguing eevees race in, hungry from their playful mock-battles.

The aspiring espeon takes a step, then looks back at his brother. "Are you coming or not?"

The other glances at the darkening forest, admiring the shadow's own special beauty. Mournfully, he walks toward his brother and family.

His brother laughs. "You love the shadows so much, perhaps you want to be an evil umbreon!" It is a joke, after all. No eevee could ever want to be an umbreon. That was a punishment reserved for the unfortunate, the unworthy who strove to be an espeon, or had not found a stone.

***

"Espeon, use psychic!"

It is now far later. What has become of his family is unknown, after he was captured. But even with a trainer, he strove not to be a normal stone evolution, but one of the rarest. He managed to evolve even before his trainer got a stone, something few eevees manage to do. And he is now an elite.

"Good job espeon, return!"

A proud look is on his trainer's face, and it is mirrored by his own for an instant before he is recalled.

***

"Flareon, use fireblast!"

The flareon stares out at the lake mournfully. She can't even go near water anymore, ever since her trainer chose her evolution for her.

She looks across at the other pokemon. A jolteon. Why couldn't her trainer have wanted a jolteon, rather then a flareon? At least then she could go near water.

Ignoring the battle, she suddenly decides to choose her own path, one last time since she was captured. Her eyes are blind, seeing only her happier days as a young eevee, when she boasted of her own prized evolution.

Her trainer is too slow to react, and the red beam misses her, as she races to the lake and dives in.

For an instant, before her eyes close forever, she sees and lives in the underwater paradise she loved as a child.

***

"Jolteon, use thunder!"

The jolteon obeys like a robot. He wishes for someone to pet him, praise him, look at him without fear.

Why, so long ago, had he really wished for this? Oh, he was untouchable in battle, but he was the rest of the time too.

The last one to pat him on the head was a toddler years ago. Her mother had snatched the child away an instant later, fearing he might get upset and use pin missile or shock her.

He remembers, hazily, how he had once seen a flareon kill itself. He couldn't understand it. At least a flareon was soft and cuddly, even if it could hurt you. Why would it wish to die? At least it wasn't blocked by electric bars from the rest of the world.

The battle won, his trainer recalls him without even saying his name.

"Return."  


***

"Vaporeon, use hydro pump!"

He obeys. Not happy, but at least not really sad.

His heart yearns for that familiar warmth. The coolness of the water is no pleasure to him. Only when a fire pokemon dares to try a fire attack on him does he get it. Then there is pain, as there is not in the cool/cold waters, but at least there is heat.

He doesn't even mind going up against the many electric pokemon. His trainer has nothing but water and a single flying, so he is often chosen for this since he can take more damage then most. When the electricity races through him, he almost feels, just for a moment, that rare warmth. Pokemon don't like to use fire attacks on water pokemon, but electric attacks are used. Yes, he can feel agony flowing though him, but at least pain feels warm, too.

He stares at the fire pokemon he often battles with yearning unlike anything else in his cold world. He keeps the battle going as long as he can, just to feel that fire, or electricity, or even just pure pain, to warm him for a time. But he never loses, never ever, even if by the end of the battle he feels like he doesn't have the strength to breathe, even when he knows he has no more attack power left and must stagger over, somehow, to the other pokemon and use struggle. If he loses, his master might stop using him as much.

He loves battling, in his own strange way, because in pain he feels that tiny bit of warmth, as he has not felt it since he was a carefree eevee, playing in the sunny meadows of his home, and boasting how one day, he would be a flareon.

"Great job, vaporeon! Return!"

The praise does not warm him, as he returns to that cold cell.

***

He stays in the forest now, as often as he can. His trainer left him, because he wouldn't evolve. A failure. A failure that never lost, but wouldn't evolve into what he was told to.

He gave his heart to that trainer, and for what?

***

"Go, espeon!"

The silver/gray pokemon appears in all its glory.

"Hey, little friend, I heard a dark pokemon has been spotted around here. There's a reward for it. I've heard dark and psychic pokemon are connected like good and evil. Can you find it, boy?"

Espeon's eyes glaze over as his psychic sight blankets the area. He doesn't notice the lower term his trainer uses to refer to him. He is used to it, having been raised not as an equal but as a pet and weapon. He is not his master's equal, he knows it and accepts it as the natural way of things.

He searches, not knowing for what, and finds a hole in what he can sense. He focuses, but no matter how hard he tries, he can't find out what it is. It becomes aware of his attention, and vanishes from his sense.

Opening his eyes and returning to the normal world, he lets out a short hunting cry to let his trainer know he has found it.

"Great job boy, show me where!"

The psychic pokemon races off, to the place where he sensed nothingness before that itself disappeared.

He stops in an open clearing. For an instant, he remembers his childhood in the meadows, but shakes it off.

"Alright, whatever you are! I know you're here, so just come out and get it over with!" says his trainer, his master. Espeon knows that his master's words show faith in him. His master is taking what espeon has shown him to be true, even though there is nothing here to see yet. He glows with pride.

A haggard umbreon steps out from the shadow of a bush.

***

The umbreon stares tiredly at the trainer and his espeon. He jerks, and his eyes widen in shock.

Across from him, the espeon has the same reaction.

***

The espeon stares. Could it really be…?

Across from him, the umbreon leaps forward, his exhaustion forgotten. "Brother!"

Immediately, with reactions half instinct, half training, the espeon sends a deadly psychic at the umbreon.

***

"Brother!" says the umbreon, his exhaustion forgotten as he leaps forward.

A power-filled psychic washes over him. It may not be able to harm him, but he feels it.

He stares at his brother, his face as mask of betrayal.

"Why?"

***

The espeon takes an involuntary step back. Confused, and not knowing what to do, he is torn between attacking this monster, obeying his master, and the fact this is or was his brother.

"Hurry up, attack!" yells his master. Still unsure, he uses hypnosis on the umbreon, only to turn around as his master yells, not thinking. His trainer falls over, asleep.

He turns back to the umbreon.

***

The umbreon is also confused. His brother attacked him, but has just saved him from the human. Perhaps the attack was an accident? His tail wagging slightly, he walks over cautiously.

***

"Get away from me!" yells the espeon, anger evident in his voice. In his eyes the umbreon is clearly reflected. It is as if seeing a demon, a hellspawn, a ghoul arisen from what has once been a friend. Umbreon exist in legend and myth, as the rarest of all dark pokemon, and as monster from nightmares.

"What's the matter?" asks the umbreon, upset. The espeon shudders, for it is unnerving. He hears the voice of his brother in the harsh cries of the foul hellbeast's language. The words come from the mouth of a demon, the one he can see standing in front of him. Of course, an indifferent observer would have found the tones almost musical, as all the eevee and their evolution's cries.

The espeon takes another step back.

***

"What's the matter?" asked the umbreon, hurt and upset. Why was his brother afraid of him? His question seems only to scare his brother more, for the espeon takes another step back. "Why are you afraid of me?"

"Get away from me. We are not friends, we are not brothers."

***

"Get away from me. We are not friends, we are not brothers."

"Brother, it is only me. I would not hurt you."

"You are my sworn enemy."

***

"Brother…How can you say these things?"

The umbreon is hurt even more. Humans hate him, and now his own brother calls him an enemy.

"I am no different then if I had become a vaporeon, or flareon. I am still me, even though my form has changed. Are you a entirely new creature just because you are espeon?"

***

The umbreon stares across the clearing, but the espeon does not even bother to notice the hope in his once-brother's eyes.

"Yes, I am. You are a dark, the curse of the psychic type." The espeon races forward, getting ready to attack.

***

"Brother…why? Why?"

The umbreon stands there, shocked, as the espeon slams into him with quick attack.

"We are not friends, nor brothers. You are darkness and I am light. It is our destiny to destroy each other."

Tears brim in the umbreon's eyes as he races away from the only member of his family he has ever found.

***

Yes, I am obsessed with eevees and their evolutions, particularly espeon and umbreon. If you have a problem with that, don't tell me, because I don't care. I got this by watching Mewtwo Strikes Back (you should be able to figure out what in the movie gave me the idea. I'm practicing saying something by hints.) and thinking about how upon evolution, each eevee gains a different type advantage or disadvantage. 

This is the third fic I've written that doesn't use names. If you thought it was overly confusing in the wrong way (it was supposed to be confusing) say so on your review. If you are confused by my confusion explanation, don't try to tell me. It should have required at least a moderate amount of attention to work out what was happening.


End file.
